M is for Mommy

I got a new toy for my birthday! No, it’s not a Treo or an Ipod, like some other bloggers I know . Remember, it’s summer here. I got an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer! I love using my KitchenAid mixer anyway. It makes me feel like a “real missionary” from the days when every missionary wife had one to grind the family’s peanut butter and make the Sunday morning sausage. It kneads four pizzas worth of dough every Friday afternoon. But this ice cream maker attachment puts it over the top! It’s a bowl with really thick sides and a gel inside. It’s REALLY HEAVY (read, “hard to transport internationally). It lives in the freezer and I can have homemade ice cream in about 4 hours with about 45 minutes worth of work with no ice/rock salt mess. Most of the work is chopping delectable ingredients to put in the ice cream and most of the time is chilling the ingredients and curing the ice cream afterwards. The best thing is that apparently Ben and Jerry had this ice crea...

Somewhere along the way I lost my blog audience. Southern Baptists in the US who pray for missionaries and fellow missionaries around the world have gone elsewhere. In the meantime, my readership has tripled. Why? Because this Daniel fasting is hot stuff. People from all over the western hemisphere are starting their new year with a Daniel fast and need recipes now! Individuals, churches, TV preachers, everyone seems to be into fasting right now. This spiritual discipline that was lost for many years is now being found by the church today. Kool. I did have a few scattered thoughts from all I've heard and read and experienced lately. I heard a TV preacher yesterday give a very elegant (simple and usable) definition of the Daniel Fast: "No meat, No sweets, No grains." I liked it for it's ease of use. I heard of another public figure who fasts one day of each week, one week of each month, and one month of each year. Interesting, especially if you can look at it in a ...